An Englishman's Travels In America: His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States - 1857 - By J. Benwell.
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At Tallahassee I Saw In The Streets, In Charge Of A
Ruffianly-Looking Fellow, Two Negroes, With Heavy Iron Collars Round
Their Necks.
These were captured run-aways; the collars, which must
have weighed seven or ten pounds, had spikes projecting on either side.
One of the poor creatures had hold of the spikes as he walked along to
ease the load that pressed painfully on his shoulders.
General Murat resided at the time in this neighbourhood; he is the
brother of Jehoiachin, ex-king of Naples, and owns a large plantation,
and, I was told, upwards of two hundred negroes, who were described as
being humanely treated by him. This, however, is a very indefinite term,
where all slave-owners profess to do the same, though the poor wretches
over whom by law they impiously assume God's heritage, in ninety cases
out of every hundred, are scantily clothed, worse fed than horses or
mules, and worked to the utmost extent of human endurance, the humanity
being, in most cases, left to the tender mercies of a brutal overseer,
who exacts all he can. If the poor, tattered, squalid-looking beings I
saw in Tallahassee be a fair specimen of the "humane treatment" I have
referred to, heaven help them.
General Murat, some years ago, married an American lady, who delighted
in being called the "princess," a little piece of vanity quite in
keeping with the aristocratical prejudices of American females in the
south, who are devoted worshippers of lordly institutions and usages.
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